14 DAY TRIAL // The Australian division of the NPD Group has announced that traditional retail sales linked to video games have declined by 12.8 percent in the territory during 2011, although much of the lost revenue has been recuperated via non-traditional means, mainly digital revenue linked to subscriptions and streaming.
The Australian market performed better than during the same period in 2010 during the holiday sales, when the unit sales increased by 5% and the overall value has gone up by 13 percent.
The NPD Group figures for Australia, like those for the North American market, do not include online sales, downloadable content, micro-transactions, mobile games and MMO subscriptions.
Estimates from analyst firm Telsyte say that in-game purchases have managed to generate 450 million United States dollars (259 million Euro).
Sam Yip, who is an analyst working at Telsyte, stated, “Online gaming subscriptions and in-game virtual goods sales are growing strongly in Australia, and will account for around 20% of the overall digital goods and online subscriptions market (which consists of 26 categories such as Internet video, Internet music and digital news subscriptions) in 2012.”
Anthony Reed, who is the chief executive officer at the Games Development Association of Australia, has added, “In 2011, Australian made games featured highly across multiple digital platforms. For example, Brisbane’s Halfbrick Studios recorded over 120 million downloads of their smash-hit, Fruit Ninja, and 11million for the recently released, Jetpack Joyride, and Melbourne-based Iron Monkey Studios won Apple’s coveted ‘Gameof the Year’ award with Dead Space.
“Into 2012 we will see many more innovative and creative properties made by Australian studios releasing to a global audience.”
The Australian video game industry is expected to grow to an overall value of 2.5 billion dollars (1.9 billion Euro) in 2015, according to a report from PriceWaterHouseCooper, with more than half generated by non-traditional sales channels.